Malin – Ceremony #2
“Thank you,” she said, her voice clipped.
“I know you’d be miserable up there, surrounded by the High Council, anyway.
No reason for both of us to be miserable.
” She forced her mouth into a tight, half-hearted smile that made her cheeks stiffen, knowing the warmth didn’t come anywhere close to reaching her eyes.
Before Will could attempt a reply, a resonant, bone-rattling blast of ceremonial horns cut through the cavernous hall.
The deep, brassy vibration traveled straight up through the polished floor and buzzed against the thin soles of Malin’s slippers.
It was the final signal; seating for the crowning ceremony was officially starting.
Will leaned down, the familiar, scratchy warmth of his beard grazing her skin as he pressed a quick, fleeting kiss to her cheek.
Surrounded by hundreds of calculating Elven eyes, it was the most appropriate gesture he could offer, but the polite, cursory contact left Malin aching.
She lamented the chaste distance, her touch-starved body begging to grab his lapels and drag his mouth down to hers for something real.
Instead, she swallowed her desperate frustration.
His broad back parted the tide of gossiping nobles, leaving her to face the daunting royal procession alone.
Soon, the heavy oak doors would open for the presentation of Anariel as the newly crowned queen.
In the span of a single month, the willowy Elven woman with striking violet eyes had gone from a stranger to the sister Malin never had.
They had survived this political nightmare together, keeping each other grounded while Anariel mourned her slaughtered family and Malin agonized over her mother’s deteriorating condition.
Malin marched toward the grand hall, claiming Aeladar’s offered elbow as a solid anchor.
She focused on her father’s steady presence to block out the endless parade of ambassadors.
The same High Council lords who had callously demanded weeks of archaic Ancestral Invocations while Anariel’s family lay in crystal-blood silence.
Malin glanced at the ornate timepiece on the wall. She still hadn’t figured out how to read the Elven dots, but she could tell by the shifting, faint glow that it was time to enter the grand hall.
“I don’t know how you’ve done this for so many years,” she murmured, looking up at her father.
The battle-hardened General towered beside her.
He wore his silver hair pulled back into an intricate warrior’s knot, perfectly matching the tailored black formal suit that hung from his broad shoulders.
Silver runes of ancient power shimmered across the dark fabric.
He looked every bit the lethal commander, especially with the jagged scar cleaving his cheek, yet a profound, heavy grief darkened his rare violet eyes.
The crushing urgency of their delayed mission to Fellspire pressed upon them both, heavier than the stifling velveteen cape draped across Malin’s shoulders. He had allowed the political process a month to try to trade the device they needed to save her mother.
The heavy doors groaned open.
Malin’s breath caught in her throat. Living branches wove into vaulted arches that soared over a hundred feet above, their silver-veined leaves catching the light of a thousand floating luminescent spheres.
The massive chamber stretched before them like a cathedral carved from a single living tree.
Its polished amber floor reflected the rainbow shimmer of the crystal-embedded walls.
Over two thousand beings filled the cavernous space.
As Malin and Aeladar walked toward the front row, they passed representatives from across the globe: tall, elegant Elves in iridescent silks, stoic Dwarven emissaries with gem-encrusted beards, and even the reclusive dragonborn: Dracnors and Dracnaughts.
Whispers circulated through the crowd that Media was sending a representative to claim her mother’s vacant High Council seat.
Malin had not asked Anariel to verify the gossip, assuming the Queen was far too overwhelmed to discuss it.
While her mother had spent years serving as an ambassador for Media, it seemed utterly unthinkable that the treacherous city would dare send a replacement amid the current hostilities.
However, Malin could not be certain if Media’s actual government knew what the CEO of their largest tech giant had been orchestrating in the shadows.
They took their places in ornate, silver-filigree chairs mere steps from the ancient throne. As Anariel’s only living relatives, it was a position of immense, inescapable honor.
Trapped under the weight of thousands of calculating stares, she was profoundly grateful that Will and the kids were allowed to sit several rows behind them.
She had spent the last month drowning in Elven protocols and ancient traditions, desperately trying to learn the rules of the foreign world she now belonged to.
But all the breathtaking beauty could not mask the tragedy hanging in the air.
Beneath the heavy incense, Malin caught the faint, delicate odor of Vixenglove.
Anariel had demanded those blooms specifically as a haunting, deliberate threat.
The rare flowers produced a toxin that turned blood into crystal.
It was the exact method used to slaughter her family, and the new Queen fully intended to ensure no one in the room forgot it.
The throne room blazed with the royal Mellyrn colors. Tapestries of deepest violet cascaded between columns wrapped in silver-threaded ribbons that caught and multiplied the light from golden orbs floating near the vaulted ceiling.
Malin’s jaw fell open as Anariel entered the room with her twin Elven mates towering by her sides.
The Queen wore her ceremonial violet silks adorned with silver thread that caught the light of a thousand enchanted candles.
Her waist-length platinum hair was braided into an elaborate crown atop her head, with a single thick plait falling like liquid moonlight across her chest. Tiny woven amethysts perfectly matched the color of her eyes.
Flanking her, the Warden twins buckled the air with their opposing elemental forces.
Nar’s presence hit first. He was a wall of scorching heat that made her inner fire leap in recognition.
His amber eyes smoldered with floating embers that matched the silver-threaded crimson of his tunic.
On the Queen’s other side, Khelek was a silent glacier; the marble frosted beneath his boots, and the steel-grey rings of his eyes contracted with the ship-like groan of the room’s ancient trees.
They stood like sentinels on either side, protective and proud, their hands white-knuckled on the hilts of ceremonial swords they weren’t permitted to draw.
The ceremony stretched on for hours, each ritual more breathtaking than the last, yet a tightness squeezed Malin’s chest. She was certain it was more than the corset under her silks.
When they finally settled the ancient crown upon Anariel’s brow, its silver branches seemed to grow into her platinum hair, and the chamber erupted in thunderous acclaim.
Yet beneath the celebration, dangerous undercurrents of tension churned. Could the people’s adoration protect Anariel from sharing her family’s fate? Her friend’s reluctance to rule made her wise, but that same hesitation might become weakness in the eyes of enemies.
Malin swept the guards, searching for signs of threat. She had seen Anariel cleave through opponents like silk in their battles, but even the mightiest rulers bleed when caught unaware.
The Head Minster offered the final blessing to the kingdom, and cheers exploded around her. She released a sigh, relieved that this portion of her required duty was over.